


Fermata

by ImpishTubist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Lie Low At Lupin's (Harry Potter)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:01:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27999411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImpishTubist/pseuds/ImpishTubist
Summary: Sirius lies low at Lupin’s while they await Dumbledore’s orders.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 12
Kudos: 70





	Fermata

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta’d, not Brit-picked, just trying to get some one-shots off my brain. I don't support JKR or her terrible views, I just like taking her characters and making them queer. 
> 
> _Fermata: a pause of unspecified length._

Sirius turns up at the cottage three days after Remus receives a cryptic and frankly alarming letter from Dumbledore. He’s covered in mud, smells like a swamp, and looks like he hasn’t had a good meal in weeks. Months. As soon as Remus closes the door to the cottage behind him and re-does all the wards, Sirius transforms back into his usual human shape and drips filthy rainwater all over Remus’s floor. 

“Let’s get you cleaned up,” Remus says. Sirius nods, allowing Remus to keep their first genuine meeting in almost fourteen years on neutral ground. Cleaning up, taking care of each other. That’s natural. That, they don’t need to have _conversations_ about. 

Remus runs him a bath. While Sirius scrubs away the years’ worth of grime that’s caked onto his skin, Remus finds him a fresh towel and some clothes that will fit him well enough. He’s always been taller than Sirius and far more lean, but Azkaban whittled Sirius’s body down to almost nothing, and a year on the run hasn’t helped matters. Remus has a feeling Sirius will be swimming in his clothes. 

“Moony?” Sirius gestures at his head as Remus comes into the bathroom to set the pile of clothes down. “Cut all this off, would you?” 

Sirius’s hair is long, thick, and matted. Remus takes the majority of it off with a pair of garden shears, then uses his wand to clean up the rest. Sirius ends up with hair shorter than Remus has seen it since, well, probably since first or second year. It’s not a particularly _good_ haircut, but it does the job.

“There’s an extra razor in the cabinet,” Remus says, nodding over to the sink. “Do you--ah. Do you need any help shaving?” 

Sirius lifts an eyebrow at him, his gaze flicking pointedly to Remus’s upper lip. “Do you?”

To be honest, he’s mostly forgotten about the mustache. He doesn’t really notice it anymore, he’s gotten so used to seeing it on his face. He coughs. “Ah, no, thank you.”

“Did you grow that thing to make yourself look more distinguished?” Sirius asks, a rare playful light in his eyes. Remus flushes, and Sirius suddenly cackles. It’s an abrupt, bright sound, and Remus’s heart swells. “You _did_ , didn’t you? You grew it for when you went to teach at Hogwarts.”

“Well, I’d never been a professor before,” Remus says defensively, though he’s also trying not to laugh. He _does_ look ridiculous with it, he knows. “I wanted the students to take me seriously!” 

He leaves Sirius laughing in the tub and retreats to the kitchen. It’s another half an hour before Sirius finally emerges, clean-shaven and looking almost like the shadow of the man Remus had fallen in love with. 

He’s had to roll up the sleeves and cuff the trousers of the clothes Remus left him, but they don’t look as ridiculous on him as Remus had feared. Maybe Remus has lost more weight over the years than he originally thought. In any case, the sight of Sirius wearing his clothes _does things_ to Remus, so he quickly turns back to the meal he’s preparing for them. 

“Make yourself comfortable,” he says. “Tea’s almost ready, and dinner won’t be far behind.”

“I can help, you know.” 

“Sit,” Remus says firmly, pointing at one of the kitchen table’s two chairs. “I’ve got this.” 

Sirius obeys, watching Remus prepare their meal in silence. He’s so quiet, Remus thinks with dismay. He’s never been quiet like this before, always filling the silences with idle chatter and laughter. It’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s _wrong_. He’s eerily still, too, except for the nervous tattoo he taps out on his thigh with his fingers. 

Once they’re settled at the table with tea and food, Remus decides they can’t put off the conversation any longer. 

“How’s Harry?” 

“I am going to _murder_ Dumbledore,” Sirius says darkly, which doesn’t exactly answer Remus’s question but also doesn’t fill him with confidence. “He should be here. With us.” 

“I’m sure there’s a good reason Dumbledore keeps sending him back to his relatives,” Remus says, though for the life of him he can’t think of one. He would have taken Harry in an instant, if he’d been allowed. Even a jobless, broke werewolf can provide a better life for him than the Dursleys. He tries to steer them back on track. "The Tournament, Sirius. What happened? Was Harry hurt?" 

“Poppy took care of him,” Sirius says. “He was a mess, after. They _tortured_ him. Fourteen years old, and they--” He cuts himself off. “And that boy was murdered in front of him. He saw it happen.”

“Oh, Harry,” Remus says softly, unable to help himself. 

Sirius grows somber. “You knew Diggory, didn’t you? You taught him?” 

Remus nods, throat tight. “He was bright. He was _good_. He didn’t deserve that.”

“No one deserves it,” Sirius says grimly. Then his expression softens. “I’m sorry, Rem. I know you loved teaching. I know you loved those kids.” 

_Rem_. No one’s called him that in years. No one’s called him that since 1981, specifically. 

Sirius draws a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “But there’s more, I’m afraid. Harry and Diggory weren’t attacked by a random group of Voldemort’s old supporters. Voldemort was _there_. He used Harry’s blood and some old ritual to resurrect himself. Gave himself a proper body. He’s _back_ , Remus.”

Though Remus has been expecting something like this to happen someday, that does nothing to lessen the shock. The food he’s eaten sits like lead in his belly; for a moment, he’s afraid he’s going to throw up. 

“Oh, Harry,” he whispers again. 

“Fudge doesn’t believe it’s true. Thankfully, Dumbledore does,” Sirius says. “He’s had me on the move since then, alerting our people. He’s getting the Order back together. He told me to lie low with you, and he’d send word when he’s ready for the next step.”

“Which is?” Remus asks. Here Sirius’s expression darkens. 

“We move into Order headquarters,” Sirius says. “Grimmauld Place.” 

It takes Remus a moment to work that out. Once he does, he’s horrified. “ _No_. Oh, Sirius, you can’t go back there. Is Dumbledore _mad_?”

“Probably,” Sirius says. “But it was my idea, Moony. It’s not like anyone’s using the place, and who would think that the Order of the Phoenix would be operating out of the home of a pureblood family like the Blacks?” 

“Sirius--”

“If Harry can go back to Privet Drive each summer and live with people who hate him, I can face that empty house,” Sirius says stubbornly. “Good ol’ Mum’s long dead, and so’s my old man. It’s not like there’s anything there except for the dead house elves on the wall.” 

Remus grimaces. He’s never been to Grimmauld Place, but from the few stories Sirius has told him about his childhood, it sounds horrific. 

“Are you at least able to write to him?” Remus asks. Sirius nods. At least Dumbledore hasn’t taken that much from him. “I don’t own an owl, I’m afraid, but the forest is full of them. And you’re rather good at getting non-magical creatures to listen to you.” 

He remembers the few letters he received from Sirius this past year, most of them delivered by increasingly-outrageous tropical birds. Sirius snorts. “Just gotta know how to appeal to them, Moony, that’s all.” 

Remus has been fretting for three days about sleeping arrangements--he doesn’t have an extra bed, the sofa isn’t long enough for Sirius, and he’s not going to relegate his friend to the floor--but when the time comes, he finds that he’s too tired to care. 

“We can both take the bed, it’s big enough for it,” he says, and Sirius nods. They take turns in the bathroom, and Sirius borrows a pair of Remus’s pajama bottoms. When they get into bed, Sirius takes the left side and Remus takes the right, and it’s as though the past fourteen years never happened. But then Remus’s foot accidentally brushes against Sirius’s calf, and Sirius leaps away from him like he’s been burned, and suddenly nothing is like it was fourteen years ago. “Sorry.” 

“S’fine.” Sirius clears his throat. “Goodnight, Moony.”

“Goodnight, Padfoot.” 

*** 

Sirius wakes up in a bed.

This realization is so startling that he sits bolt upright, blinking in confusion until the memories of the previous day come back to him. The bed is empty and cold. Remus must have been up for hours.

That isn’t so unusual, Sirius thinks. He’s found himself unconsciously cataloging Remus’s life in the twelve hours he’s been in this cottage, slotting everything he notices into categories of _old_ and _new_. Remus’s insomniac tendencies are old. The dozen books scattered about the living room, bookmarked in various places--also old, of course. Remus has always had his nose buried in a book; that hasn’t changed over the years. The cane propped against the room’s lone armchair, though, that’s new. The cigarettes stashed in the cupboard: old. The Muggle television: new. The garden: new. 

Sirius lifts his arms over his head, stretches his spine. It pops in places it never used to, reminding him that he’s rapidly approaching middle age even though the last clear memory he has is as a twenty-one-year-old. His knees creak when he gets to his feet, and Merlin, this must be what Remus feels like all the time. Poor sod.

There’s a plate of food waiting for him on the table, still warm and fresh even though Remus must have cooked it hours ago. Sirius finds him out on the back step, working his way through a pack of cigarettes while a cup of tea goes cold at his side. 

“Sickle for your thoughts?” 

Remus snorts and takes a drag on the cigarette. “They’re hardly worth that.” 

“Think you should tell them to me anyway.” 

Remus sighs. “What was the point of fighting that war in the first place if our children are fighting it again half a generation later?”

It’s nothing Sirius hasn’t thought a hundred, a thousand times already. He still doesn’t have a good answer. Luckily, Remus doesn’t seem to expect one. 

“When did you learn to cook?” Sirius asks as he digs into the food. 

Remus is quiet for a moment, and then says, “Fourteen years ago.” 

Sirius deserved that one, even though it curdles his stomach. Stupid question. He’d been the one to cook most of their meals. Remus had always been laughingly bad at it. He stabs a forkful of eggs. They’re delicious, and that makes it _worse._ All this was born of Remus’s pain. Of the pain that Sirius caused him. James left him, Lily left him, _Sirius_ left him, and he’s had to make his own way in the world since then. Alone, after they all promised him that he would never be alone again. 

“Sleep alright?” Remus asks, like Sirius is his _guest_. Like any of this is normal.

“Fine.” Better than he has in ages, actually. “You?”

“Fine,” Remus says. 

“Good.” He hates this. It’s like they’re strangers.

 _But you are, aren’t you?_ an insidious voice at the back of his mind says. He’d only known Remus for ten years before he was shipped off to Azkaban, and that last year didn’t even really count. They spent the whole of it thinking the other was a traitor. It’s been nearly fourteen years since then. He’s been apart from Remus for longer than they were together. 

“Did you want to write to Harry?” Remus asks. “I’ve got some pens and paper. Parchment and quills, too. Whatever you prefer.” 

“Thanks.” Sirius _does_ need to write to him. It’s been two weeks since the end of the tournament, two weeks since Harry watched a classmate--a _friend_ \--die before his eyes. Sirius tries to remember fourth year, what it would have been like to experience something like that--but he can’t. His Hogwarts years are a vague memory, now. He knows he was happy, but he can’t actually _remember_ it. One of the many things the Dementors took from him. “What’s he like?” 

“Harry?” Remus asks, half-turning in surprise. 

“You did teach him for a year,” Sirius says, struggling not to be hurt by the fact that, when it comes down to it, Remus has spent more time with his godson than he has. 

“Smart,” Remus says. “Powerful. Sensitive. He produced a Patronus, you know that. As a third year! But there were times--” 

He breaks off. Sirius asks, “What?” 

“Let’s just say that there were too many nights that ended with him crying on the floor of my classroom,” Remus says. “Too many nights when I wanted to be there for him, and couldn’t. He didn’t even know me.” 

“Why didn’t you take him in?" He tries not to make it sound like an accusation, and isn't sure that he's entirely successful. 

"I tried." Remus finishes off his cigarette and lights another. “It took me about a year to pull myself together. When I finally tried to get custody, Dumbledore stepped in and stopped me.” 

“And you gave up, did you?” Sirius asks, and now he _is_ accusing. Someone should have fought for Harry, since he couldn't do it himself.

“No,” Remus says softly. “Of course not. I took it to the Ministry. I spoke to everyone who would even give me the time of day, and quite a few who wouldn’t. I haunted their offices for weeks. Months. Harry was five when I gave up. No one in their right minds would let a werewolf be the guardian for the Boy Who Lived.” 

Sirius’s anger abruptly leeches away. There’s nothing more to say about it, and nothing either of them can do to change what happened. Remus smokes two more cigarettes while Sirius polishes off the plate of food. Back inside, they discover an owl waiting for them by the fireplace. It must have flown in one of the open windows while they were on the back step. Remus detaches the letter and unrolls it while Sirius finds the owl something to eat. 

“What happened?” Sirius asks as he watches Remus’s expression cloud over. 

“Nothing.” Remus folds the letter carefully and then tosses it into the fireplace for kindling. “He wants us at Grimmauld Place at the end of the week.” 

Sirius’s mood sours further. Given the choice, he’d rather be back in that cave in Hogsmeade eating rats than living at Grimmauld Place again. 

But he’ll be able to see Harry. That’s what he has to remember. Dumbledore doesn’t want to bring Harry to Grimmauld Place until later in the summer, which Sirius doesn’t understand, but he’ll take what he can get. A couple of weeks with Harry sleeping under his roof--well, it won’t make up for lost time, but it will be something. 

He spends the rest of the day as Padfoot. It’s oddly freeing, being a dog. Not that his thoughts stop entirely, but everything is simpler. Quieter. Time flows differently, too. He alternates between napping in the garden and chasing small animals and birds, and before he knows it, he’s whiled away the entire day. 

When he comes back inside, he finds Remus curled up in the armchair, head bent over a book that’s open in his lap. The firelight highlights the lines in his face, the grey in his hair, but to Sirius it only makes him look more beautiful. It’s a scene reminiscent of all the nights they spent in the common room together. Remus doesn’t even look up as Sirius sprawls dramatically on the rug in front of the fire, just turns the page and asks, “Have a good time?” 

“You’ve let this place go to the birds, Moony. Fearless, they are.” 

“Well, you’re not very frightening.” 

“I am _plenty_ frightening,” Sirius says indignantly. 

“Sure, Padfoot.” Remus turns another page, eyes dancing quickly over the text. He reads faster than anyone Sirius has ever met, and retains everything. Another page turn, and then another. “Are you going to stare at me all night?” 

“How can I not, when you’re so--” Sirius cuts himself off, but not fast enough. _Shit_. A comment like that wouldn’t have been out of place fifteen, sixteen years ago, but now…

Remus glances at him, startled. They stare at one another for a moment before Remus clears his throat and goes back to his reading. 

“When I’m so…?” he asks, pointedly turning a page. 

Sirius doesn’t know what to say. What lie would be plausible in that context? He curses himself and his mouth, which has once again run off before his brain could catch up, as it always does. 

“Beautiful,” he says finally, quietly. What the hell. It’s not like he has much left to lose. 

Remus turns another page in his book. The fire crackles behind Sirius.

“I’m old, Sirius,” he says finally.

“So am I.” 

“No, you’re not, you’re--” Remus stops. 

“Thirty-five, same as you.” Thirty-six in November, but he tries not to think about that. He’d been carted off to Azkaban on his twenty-second birthday. The gulf between then and now is enormous, and he doesn’t know how to bridge the gap. 

“Merlin.” Remus fingers the corner of a page absently. “When did that happen?” 

Sirius doesn’t know what propels him off the floor, but one moment he’s sprawled on the rug and the next he’s on his knees in front of the armchair, Remus’s shirt bunched in one hand. He yanks Remus down, crushing their lips together, and--well, it’s certainly not a _great_ kiss. It’s not particularly elegant or comfortable, and their noses knock together, and Sirius’s lower lip gets caught painfully between Remus’s teeth, but it’s _good_. It’s honey-warm and wonderful and it feels like coming home. 

It takes another few kisses for them to get the angle right, to get all their limbs sorted; another few kisses for their hands to be sure and firm where they touch instead of wandering and awkward. Somehow, Sirius ends up in Remus’s lap while the book ends up on the floor, and though he’s not entirely sure how that happened, he’s not complaining. 

They should probably talk about this. Sirius doesn’t even realize he’s voiced this out loud until Remus huffs against his mouth and draws away.

“When did you become the sensible one?”

“Oi,” Sirius says halfheartedly. “Rude.” 

Remus sighs and leans back in the chair, though he keeps his tight grip on Sirius. “We probably _should_ talk about this.” 

“Yeah.” There’s a beat of silence, and then Sirius adds, “Tomorrow.” 

“An excellent idea.” Remus yawns abruptly, and then grimaces. “Not least because I’m _knackered_.” 

Sirius is, too, come to think of it. He’s not fit for much more than falling into Moony’s bed and then falling directly asleep. But maybe he’ll get to do that with Remus’s body twined around his this time, and that would make for a pleasant night indeed. “Agreed. But Moony?”

“Hmm?” Remus is now sleepily nuzzling the side of his neck, and Sirius’s thought process threatens to derail. He wrenches it back on track. 

“Shave the mustache.”


End file.
